It's almost Halloween, the most orange-and-black time of the year. It's also quarterly financial report time, which means that Harley-Davidson just dropped its Q3 2024 financial stats on the world.
How did it do? Apparently, folks don't love the orange and black as much as the company probably wishes they did. Or, at least, not according to the shipment and sales numbers.
As a refresher, when Harley talks about the motorcycles it produces, it refers to things in three ways. LiveWire is included in this report, but it's considered as its own category. It's a category that includes all EV units, which includes both LiveWire and StaCyc, the children's electric balance bike brand that Harley also owns.
Over on the ICE motorcycle side, Harley-Davidson reports in two categories: Motorcycle Shipments, and Motorcycle Sales. For LiveWire, which as we've said includes all EV motorbikes, the 2024 figures all reflect Electric Motorcycle Sales. For the first five quarters that LiveWire was reported separately in Harley's quarterly financial reports, the company reported Electric Motorcycle Shipments, not Sales.
Now that that's clear, how did Q3 2024 Harley-Davidson Motor Company Motorcycle Shipments go? Not great. In Q3 of 2024, it shipped 27,500 motorcycles, which means it's down 39 percent as compared to the 45,300 it shipped in Q3 of 2023.
What about HDMC Worldwide Motorcycle Sales? Those are down 13 percent in Q3 of 2024, as well. The Motor Company breaks down its worldwide presence into four regional categories: North America, Europe/Middle East/Africa (EMEA), Asia Pacific, and Latin America. North American sales are down 10 percent, EMEA sales are down 23 percent, and Asia Pacific sales are down 16 percent. Only Latin America sales are slightly up; the number there is a rather anemic 4 percent.
What about LiveWire EV motorcycle sales? Those are actually up 98 percent year on year in Q3 of 2024, as compared to Q3 of 2023. But when you look at the actual numbers, that's a little less impressive than it might seem when we're telling the story with percentages. In Q3 of 2024, LiveWire sold just 99 units worldwide. And remember, this includes StaCyc kids electric bikes, and we don't know how many of each type of bike was sold, because the report doesn't include that information.
Now, it's true that 99 units is better than the 50 units (that's five-zero, you read that correctly) that LiveWire reported as selling in Q3 of 2023. But it's still not exactly setting the charts on fire.
Here's How Harley And LiveWire Have Done In The Past Two Years
It's one thing to have a vague sense of how things are going from having written stories about these numbers for the past few years, but it's completely another to have the numbers all conveniently presented in one place.
So, I pulled the relevant Motorcycle Shipment, Motorcycle Sales, and LiveWire data to present to you here with some nice visuals.
For Harley-Davidson Motorcycle Shipments, I started at Q1 of 2022 and mapped the progress over time, all the way through to Q3 of 2024.
Likewise, for Harley-Davidson Motorcycle Sales, I also charted the numbers beginning with Q1 of 2022, through to Q3 of 2024. As you'll quickly see, the only quarter when Sales were above the same period in the year prior was Q2 of 2023 (and even then, it was a minimal increase).
For LiveWire reporting, it was slightly trickier to represent the data on a chart, just because of the change in terminology that Harley used in its financial reports mid-stream.
As you may recall, Harley spun off LiveWire into its own entity in 2022. So, Q4 2022 was the first time that it reported LiveWire results in their own category. From Q4 of 2022 through Q4 of 2023, it reported LiveWire Electric Motorcycle Shipments only, and not Sales.
However, beginning with Q1 of 2024, LiveWire Electric Motorcycle Sales were the only figure given (not Shipments). Still, this data visualization should help.
Will this be how the trend continues for the foreseeable future? Given the struggles that many in the powersport industry are facing, that seems to be the most likely proposition. LiveWire sales are gradually increasing, but is it enough? And what about the declining sales throughout the rest of the company?
That's unclear.
